Transfer Station Budget Endorsed

The Durham-Middlefield Interlocal Agreement Advisory Board, which runs the trash-transfer station for the two towns, endorsed a budget of $610,000 Tuesday.

Some members of the board said the budget total, a reduction from an earlier estimate, was shortsighted because it omits a payment of $50,000 to a capital replacement fund for trucks and other equipment.

``It's just going to come back to haunt us,'' board member Pat DiNatale said. ``What we are doing here is foolish, because the future members of this board are going to be in hot water down the road.''

DiNatale and board member Richard Eriksen voted against the budget because they objected to the reductions.

Durham First Selectman Henry Robinson, also on the transfer station's board, said that in the future the board will have to account more accurately for recurring capital expenses. The capital expenses were removed because Middlefield's board of finance refused to pay its share of cost, advisory board Chairman Robert Johnson said. Last year the budget was $624,000.

Another item removed from the budget was $10,000 in consulting fees. Johnson said its elimination was made possible by the revocation of an administrative order from the Department of Environmental Protection to shut down recycling and volume-reduction activities at the facility.

The budget contains money to keep the facility open for four extra hours per week, down from eight extra hours per week in a previous budget estimate.

Tom McNamara, who runs BOS Waste Removal, said he and other private trash haulers objected to the board's decision to increase fees to haulers from $1 per cubic yard of trash to $3.

McNamara called that ``double taxation,'' and warned that the increased costs would be transferred to his customers. But board member Robert Bascom said haulers benefit from use of the facility.

Also at the meeting, the board unanimously appointed Thomas White to fill one of two vacant seats on the board. He was endorsed by Marian Thayer, chairwoman of the Democratic town committee.